MARKING THE 70TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE ATOMIC BOMBINGS OF HIROSHIMA AND NAGASAKI (Scholarships available)

Join us for this national gathering marking the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and offer Campaign of Non-Violence promoters and others with significant opportunities to deepen the vision and practice of nonviolent change.

Social Action & Science

Being With DyingThis Professional Training Program for Clinicians in Compassionate Care of the Seriously Ill and Dying is fostering a revolution in care of the dying and seriously ill. Clinicians learn essential tools for taking care of dying people with skill and compassion.

ChaplaincyA visionary and comprehensive two-year program for a new kind of chaplaincy to serve individuals, communities, the environment, and the world.

"...In the Eighty-ninth Case of The Blue Cliff Records... Yunyan asks Daowu, 'How does the Bodhisattva Kanzeon use all those many hands and eyes?' Daowu replies, 'It is like someone adjusting their pillow at night.' In the dark, reaching with feeling, beyond conception and the rational mind, here compassion is a natural response to the world, not mediated by thought or rule or law or vow or intent, not regulated by religion or social duty."

You can contribute to the Resident Program:
People from all over the world come to Upaya to
practice, serve, and learn. Upaya completely supports their presence
as they stay with us from three months to a year. Please support
this program.

EDITOR'S NOTE

March marks a time at Upaya of many rites of passage.

This week students culminating their time in the Chaplaincy Training Program converge to present their final projects and celebrate graduation and ordination. At the same time, another incoming cohort of students begins the training together. Next week a group of chaplaincy candidates, as well as members of our resident body and local sangha will undergo the rite of Jukai, receiving the Zen Peacemaker precepts from Roshi Joan in a beautiful ceremony, committing to the way of non-harming, the way of compassion.

Contemplating the many turning points in the journey of our lives, we are also working together this week to create a labyrinth at Upaya, a contemplative tool that gives us space to reflect as we walk through its winding path to the center and back again.

Recognizing that we all share this path, may we actualize the everyday face of wisdom and compassion.

Áine McCarthy, Editor

THIS MONTH AT UPAYA

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Dharma Talk, Daily Practice

DHARMA TALK

WEDNESDAY, March 5, 5:30 pm — Alan Senauke, Just Enough Problems

THE POWER OF DAILY PRACTICE

7:00 am, 12:20 pm, and 5:30 pm. Please arrive five minutes early for sitting periods and events. Park in the East parking lot (Second driveway — the one farther from town.)

Please note these changes to the regular meditation schedule: There will be no midday meditation session on March 9, 15, and 23. The 12:20 session will take place in the Cerro Gordo Temple on March 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 14, 16, and 22. The Thursday seminar will take place instead of the midday zazen on March 13.

ROSHI JOAN: News, Teachings, Travels

Roshi Joan left Upaya on Sunday for Mayo Clinic, meetings with Dalai Lama, and the Mind and Life Institute. She returns to Upaya for Upaya's Chaplaincy Training, which she is co-leading with Sensei Alan Senauke. Please join her and others for the graduation and ordination of Upaya's chaplains this coming Sunday.

We are accepting applications for Upaya's resident program. Please consider joining Roshi, Visiting Teachers, and Upaya for three months or more of dedicated practice and learning. By application, click here.

Roshi as well has a number of papers she has written on compassion. If you wish to receive a copy, please write the office: upaya@upaya.org

For several new videos of interviews with Roshi Joan on Upaya's Blog, click here.

Roshi Joan started a Google+ Community and more than 2000 people have joined so far. Click here to join.

Roshi now has five new books available for sale at Upaya: Four are photography books — "Seeing Inside," "About Face," "Original Face: Unmediated Expressions of Tibet, Nepal, Burma," and "Leaning into the Light." "Lone Mallard" is a book of her haiku. In addition, over a hundred of her remarkable photos are available to look at (and purchase) on Upaya's website:https://www.upaya.org/seeing-inside/

UPAYA'S BLOG

“I try to cultivate a mind where there is no difference between the cushion and the office,” says Joshin. Ordained as a novice priest by Roshi Joan Halifax in March 2013, Joshin Brian Byrnes wears several different hats at Upaya these days, “to cover my bald head,” he jokes. His dharma name, Joshin, means “pure heart,” or “sincere heart.” In his dharma talk, Contemplation in Action, Joshin spoke about finding a co-creative dynamic between what can be two extremes: deep contemplation and engaged worldly action. With a foot in each of these worlds, Joshin’s path at Upaya is unique: continuing his long career in social activism and organizational leadership, he currently serves as President and CEO of the Santa Fe Community Foundation, devoted to addressing to the needs of people in northern New Mexico through philanthropy and nonprofit projects.

Two weeks into the 2013 trek by foot and horse beyond where machines can transport people, the Nomads group convened by Upaya Zen Center came to the valley with the big monastery on the mountainside above, overlooking the Manalsu Himal range of peaks. Night brought almost total darkness here far beyond the electrical grid, and the hundreds of boy monks filed to bed in a long, silent procession. The whole monastic complex was black. The next day, the doctors, nurses, and volunteers of the Nomads clinic treated illnesses and injuries and dewormed the children (as they do in many villages and communities on their annual month-long trek through Nepal’s Buddhist north).

They also gave the assistant to the abbot a couple of dozen Little Suns. That night, on one side of the valley the cooks and sherpas cleaning up and setting up camp had their lights on in the darkness, and on the other side the young monks were skipping, laughing, and swinging their Little Suns as they ran along the balcony to bed. There was joy and playfulness where the night before there had only been a sober, careful procession. All along the way, the Nomads distributed Suns, which were used for women to sew and weave by, monks to read sacred manuscripts by without eye strain, pilgrims and porter to travel by, and everyone to work and cook by. By the end of the trek, the Little Suns would save lives.

The year before Dr. Charles McDonald, a pulmonary specialist (or lung doctor, if you prefer) had been disturbed to see how, in this region far beyond the industrialized world, most people had respiratory problems from a lifetime of cooking, heating, and lighting by burning wood and other fuels indoors, often without much in the way of ventilation, even stovepipes or chimneys. Kerosene, considered a problem for both climate and health reasons in other places, is a luxury here; mostly wood and dung are burned. Charlie first thought about bringing solar stoves, but when I met him at the end of 2012, he was speaking, as you might of what you wish for but don’t expect, having solar lights to distribute on his next Nomads expedition. He described what he wanted wistfully, and I told him to wait a minute and ran to my room at Green Dragon Zen Temple in Muir Beach, where we were both on retreat. In a few minutes he had in his hand the powerful, elegant solar light he had spoken of as a faraway dream.

I had received them when I wrote for the Little Suns blog; some Euros were offered for my modest essay, but I asked to be paid in Little Suns instead and was delighted when a box of twenty of them soon arrived. They lit my bedside and campsite, helped me delve into dark passages on a construction project, delighted my nephews as gifts, and went into friends’ camping kits and emergency kits. The elegance of the technology delighted me, as did their role in bringing light to the unelectrified world.

Charlie had three hundred Little Suns shipped to the San Francisco Bay Area; a hundred were sold to raise money to underwrite the cost of the other two hundred. Those lights joined the twentieth annual medical mission/pilgrimage convened by Roshi (or Teacher) Joan Halifax, Abbot of Upaya Zen Center, and a longtime traveler in the Himalayas, and her core leadership, Kat Bogacz and Carroll Dunham. During the day everyone traveled with their Suns hanging from packs and gear, turned out to soak up enough light to shine in darkness. At night they lit up tents and replaced the cook tent’s gas light. The group of mostly young, mostly male Nepali workers facilitating the medical mission cum pilgrimage for the medical personnel and other travelers became deeply attached to their Little Suns. They worked by them to set up and break camp, and when work was done in the evening they danced by them, to their drums.

One day another Nomad, Chas, walking along the trail alone, as Charlie told it, “sat down next to a gentleman who had a very disfigured face and realized he was blind in one eye and couldn’t see well out of the other. He was clearly not well and alone, so Chas gave him a Sun to light his way. The gentleman broke into tears on the trail.” He added, “Another time we had come into camp near a hotel and it was just at dark. I went by the hotel kitchen and they had a little solar powered lamp that was barely enough to show itself, let alone cast light on anything, and there was a man preparing food for the guests. I couldn’t even distinguish his fingers from the vegetables on his cutting board, so I turned on a Sun and put it around his neck. It totally lit up his work area, and he exclaimed, ‘I am safe.’”

Little Suns were used for throat, eye, and ear inspections, for dentistry, for preparing tuberculosis slides, for changing dressings and looking closely at infections inside dim rooms. In one of the clinics, a doctor treated a newborn baby with pneumonia. Charlie reports, “We were able to give him antibiotics and would’ve air-evacuated him by helicopter, but the helicopters were all grounded at the time because of a late-season typhoon. When we left he appeared to have stabilized. In this family four sons had died in infancy and this was the fifth.”

Two hundred Little Suns won’t change the whole region, and distribution is on a tiny scale compared to some of the Little Suns Project’s programs in Africa, but they changed individual lives, and doctors work on the premise that every life matters. Two hundred solar lamps illuminate a lot of work, worship, study, travel, and play. Perhaps a larger distribution project will arise there at some point; the need is strong; and the recognition of the great gift of the Little Suns was compelling and immediate.

Faith Stories: Fleet Maull, Part 2

Fleet Maull, 62, is a Buddhist teacher and writer from Providence, RI, USA. He is the founder of the Prison Dharma Network and the National Prison Hospice Association. He talks here about his Buddhist path and the 14 years he spent in prison for drug smuggling.

The prison I was incarcerated in happened to be the maximum security federal hospital prison in the US. I arrived there in 1985 when the AIDS crisis was just getting into full swing, so AIDS patients were being brought in from penitentiaries all over the country. People were dying in horrible conditions. I had decided to try and do something purposeful with my time in prison. My day job was teaching, but on my meal breaks and in my spare time I started visiting patients in the hospital. Seeing a great need for this, another prisoner and I eventually started a hospice program with the cooperation of prison staff, the first hospice program behind bars.

We would be assigned to a particular patient and we'd work with them throughout their dying process. I cared for about 40 men in all and was with about half of them at the moment they died. Each death I witnessed was very profound. Some were quite ordinary in some ways but profound nonetheless, and I never got used to it.

I'd say most people are caught up in our modern culture's fear of death, materialism and worship of youth. Death isn't dealt with very well. People don't die at home very much, so we don't have any relationship with it. It's all about medical technology, tubes and instruments, which can be very dehumanising.

Yet from most religious faith perspectives every part of life is sacred, from birth to death, and whatever happens before or after. Birth and death are just book ends of this life. So to somehow think of death as this horrible thing doesn't make a lot of sense. On the one hand obviously no-one wants to die. But if you sit back and consider the bigger picture with even a slightly philosophical mindset, you realise death is part of life and destiny so we might as well make a relationship with it rather than living in fear of it.

One of the things I really appreciate about the Buddhist tradition is the really very direct, no-nonsense relationship with death. I think the Jewish attitude is quite similar in some ways, and the more contemplative Catholic traditions also embrace death more directly. As Buddhists we cultivate as much as possible an ever-present awareness of the impermanence of life and of our own death and mortality. Facing that is what wakes us up and brings us into the present moment.

While still in prison, I founded the National Prison Hospice Association to promote this kind of care throughout the prison system. Today there are about 70 hospices in state federal prisons around the country. It's really transformed how people die in prisons. Since being released I've trained many people in contemplative end of life care, but I've also watched my own partner die after a three year journey with cancer.

Her name was Denise. She was an amazing Buddhist teacher and really serious yogic practitioner in her own right. We were together about seven years. We'd both finally found the right person, you know? We were what people call soul mates. Watching her work with her mind and with death, so fearlessly, was like seeing one of those incredible yogis you read about in books. Through the whole process and at the moment of her death, I actually saw an ordinary person really sincerely embrace a truly enlightened view and transform their own life and death in an amazing way. It gave me a deep, deep faith that through Buddhist teachings, that transformation really is possible.

Published as part of the Faith Stories series of the Tony Blair Faith Foundation. http://www.tonyblairfaithfoundation.org/userevent/%E2%80%98-well-immersing-myself-all-buddhist-texts-i-could-find-i-also-went-headlong-all-drugs-sex#.UD5N3G1r6_o.facebook

The Dalai Lama's Ski Trip: Douglas Preston

What I Learned in the Slush with His Holiness

In the mid '80s, I was living in Santa Fe, N.M., making a shabby living writing magazine articles, when a peculiar assignment came my way. I had become friendly with a group of Tibetan exiles who lived in a compound on Canyon Road, where they ran a business selling Tibetan rugs, jewelry, and religious items. The Tibetans had settled in Santa Fe because its mountains, adobe buildings, and high-altitude environment reminded them of home.

The founder of the Tibetan community was a man named Paljor Thondup. Thondup had escaped the Chinese invasion of Tibet as a kid, crossing the Himalayas with his family in an epic, multiyear journey by yak and horseback. Thondup made it to Nepal and from there to India, where he enrolled in a school in the southeastern city of Pondicherry with other Tibetan refugees. One day, the Dalai Lama visited his class. Many years later, in Dharamsala, India, Thondup talked his way into a private audience with the Dalai Lama, who told Thondup that he had never forgotten the bright teenager in the back of the Pondicherry classroom, waving his hand and answering every question, while the other students sat dumbstruck with awe. They established a connection. And Thondup eventually made his way to Santa Fe.

The Dalai Lama received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989. Thondup, who had heard that he was planning a tour of the United States, invited him to visit Santa Fe. The Dalai Lama accepted and said he would be happy to come for a week. At the time, he wasn't the international celebrity he is today. He traveled with only a half-dozen monks, most of whom spoke no English. He had no handlers, advance men, interpreters, press people, or travel coordinators. Nor did he have any money. As the date of the visit approached, Thondup went into a panic. He had no money to pay for the visit and no idea how to organize it. He called the only person he knew in government, a young man named James Rutherford, who ran the governor's art gallery in the state capitol building. Rutherford was not exactly a power broker in the state of New Mexico, but he had a rare gift for organization. He undertook to arrange the Dalai Lama's visit.

"If the Dalai Lama wants to go to the ski basin, we go to the ski basin."

Rutherford began making phone calls. He borrowed a stretch limousine from a wealthy art dealer, and he asked his brother, Rusty, to drive it. He persuaded the proprietors of Rancho Encantado, a luxury resort outside Santa Fe, to provide the Dalai Lama and his monks with free food and lodging. He called the state police and arranged for a security detail.

Among the many phone calls Rutherford made, one was to me. He asked me to act as the Dalai Lama's press secretary. I explained to Rutherford that he had the wrong person, that I had no experience in that line, and that it would surely be a disaster. Rutherford said that he didn't have time to argue. The Dalai Lama, he explained, was a person who would stop and talk to anyone who asked him a question. He treated all people the same, from the president of the United States to a bum on the street, giving every person his full time and attention. Someone had to manage the press and keep the Dalai Lama from being buttonholed. And that person was going to be me.

I desperately needed the money, and so I agreed. As Rutherford was about to ring off, I asked how much I'd be paid. He was incredulous and told me he was saddened by my avarice. How could I even think about being paid for the privilege of spending a week with His Holiness? On the contrary, the volunteers were expected to give, not get. He had the pledge sheet right in front of him; how much could he put me down for?

I pledged $50.

The Dalai Lama arrived in Santa Fe on April 1, 1991. I was by his side every day from 6 a.m. until late in the evening. Traveling with him was an adventure. He was cheerful and full of enthusiasm-making quips, laughing, asking questions, rubbing his shaved head, and joking about his bad English. He did in fact stop and talk to anyone, no matter how many people were trying to rush him to his next appointment. When he spoke to you, it was as if he shut out the rest of the world to focus his entire sympathy, attention, care, and interest on you.

He rose every morning at 3:30 a.m. and meditated for several hours. While he normally went to bed early, in Santa Fe he had to attend dinners most evenings until late. As a result, every day after lunch we took him back to Rancho Encantado for a nap.

The press converged from several states to cover the story, which was far bigger than we anticipated. There were scores of reporters and television crews. I had no idea what I was doing. During the course of the week, many people were angry with me and one fellow called me a "fucking idiot." But I muddled through. The Dalai Lama met politicians, movie stars, New Age gurus, billionaires, and Pueblo Indian leaders. On the penultimate day of his visit, the Dalai Lama had lunch with Jeff Bingaman and Pete Domenici, the senators from New Mexico, and Bruce King, the state's governor. During the luncheon, someone mentioned that Santa Fe had a ski area. The Dalai Lama seized on this news and began asking questions about skiing-how it was done, if it was difficult, who did it, how fast they went, how did they keep from falling down.

After lunch, the press corps dispersed. Nothing usually happened when the Dalai Lama and his monks retired to Rancho Encantado for their afternoon nap. But this time something did happen. Halfway to the hotel, the Dalai Lama's limo pulled to the side of the road. I was following behind the limo in Thondup's car, and so we pulled over, too. The Dalai Lama got out of the back of the limo and into the front seat. We could see him speaking animatedly with Rusty, the driver. A moment later Rusty got out of the limo and came over to us with a worried expression on his face. He leaned in the window.

"The Dalai Lama says he isn't tired and wants to go into the mountains to see skiing. What should I do?"

"If the Dalai Lama wants to go to the ski basin," Rutherford said, "We go to the ski basin."

The limo made a U-turn, and we all drove back through town and headed into the mountains. Forty minutes later we found ourselves at the ski basin. It was the tail end of the ski season but the mountain was still open. We pulled up below the main lodge. The monks piled out of the limo.

"Wait here while I get somebody," Rutherford said.

He disappeared in the direction of the lodge and returned five minutes later with Benny Abruzzo, whose family owned the ski area. Abruzzo was astonished to find the Dalai Lama and his monks milling about in the snow, dressed only in their robes.

It was a splendid April day, perfect for spring skiing-the temperature in the upper 50s, the slopes crowded, the snow of the kind skiers call "mashed potatoes." The Dalai Lama and his monks looked around with keen interest at the activity, the humming lifts, the skiers coming and going, and the slopes rising into blue sky.

"Can we go up mountain?" the Dalai Lama asked Rutherford.

Rutherford turned to Abruzzo. "The Dalai Lama wants to go up the mountain."

"You mean, ride the lift? Dressed like that?"

"Well, can he do it?"

"I suppose so. Just him, or ...?" Abruzzo nodded at the other monks.

"Everyone," Rutherford said. "Let's all go to the top."

Abruzzo spoke to the operator of the quad chair. Then he shooed back the line of skiers to make way for us, and opened the ropes. A hundred skiers stared in disbelief as the four monks, in a tight group, gripping each other's arms and taking tiny steps, came forward. Underneath their maroon and saffron robes the Dalai Lama and his monks all wore the same footwear: Oxford wingtip shoes. Wingtips are terrible in the snow. The monks were slipping and sliding and I was sure that one would fall and bring down the rest.

We made it to the lift without spilling, and the operator stopped the machine, one row of chairs at a time, to allow everyone to sit down in groups of four. I ended up sitting next to the Dalai Lama, with Thondup to my left.

The Dalai Lama turned to me. "When I come to your town," he said, "I see big mountains all around. Beautiful mountains. And so all week I want to go to mountains." The Dalai Lama had a vigorous way of speaking, in which he emphasized certain words. "And I hear much about this sport, skiing. I never see skiing before."

"You'll see skiing right below us as we ride up," I said.

"Good! Good!"

We started up the mountain. The chairlift was old and there were no safety bars that could be lowered for protection, but this didn't seem to bother the Dalai Lama, who spoke animatedly about everything he saw on the slopes. As he pointed and leaned forward into space, Thondup, who was gripping the arm of the chair with whitened knuckles, kept admonishing him in Tibetan. Later he told me that he was begging His Holiness to please sit back, hold the seat, and not lean out so much.

We were looking down on the bunny slope and the skiers weren't moving fast at all. Just then, an expert skier entered from a higher slope, whipping along. The Dalai Lama saw him and said, "Look-too fast! He going to hit post!" He cupped his hands, shouting down to the oblivious skier, "Look out for post!" He waved frantically. "Look out for post!"

The skier, who had no idea that the 14th incarnation of the Bodhisattva of Compassion was crying out to save his life, made a crisp little check as he approached the pylon, altering his line of descent, and continued expertly down the hill.

With an expostulation of wonder, the Dalai Lama sat back and clasped his hands together. "You see? Ah! Ah! This skiing is wonderful sport!"

We approached the top of the mountain. Abruzzo had organized the operation so that each quad chair stopped to unload its occupants. The monks and the Dalai Lama managed to get off the chairlift and make their way across the mushy snow in a group, shuffling cautiously.

"Look at view!" the Dalai Lama cried, heading toward the back boundary fence of the ski area, behind the lift, where the mountains dropped off. He halted at the fence and stared southward. The Santa Fe ski basin, situated on the southernmost peak in the Sangre de Cristo mountain range, is one of the highest ski areas in North America. The snow and fir trees and blue ridges fell away to a vast, vermilion desert 5,000 feet below, which stretched to a distant horizon.

As we stood, the Dalai Lama spoke enthusiastically about the view, the mountains, the snow and the desert. After a while he lapsed into silence and then, in a voice tinged with sadness, he said, "This look like Tibet."

The monks admired the view a while longer, and then the Dalai Lama pointed to the opposite side of the area, which commanded a view of 12,000-foot peaks. "Come, another view over here!" And they set off, in a compact group, moving swiftly across the snow.

"Wait!" someone shouted. "Don't walk in front of the lift!"

The girls plowed into the Dalai Lama and his monks, knocking them down like red and yellow bowling pins.

But it was too late. I could see the operator, caught off guard, scrambling to stop the lift, but he didn't get to the button in time. Just then four teenage girls came off the quad chair and were skiing down the ramp straight at the group. A chorus of shrieks went up, of the piercing kind that only teenage girls can produce, and they plowed into the Dalai Lama and his monks, knocking them down like so many red and yellow bowling pins. Girls and monks all collapsed into a tangle of arms, legs, skis, poles, and wingtip shoes.

We rushed over, terrified that the Dalai Lama was injured. Our worst fears seemed realized when we saw him sprawled on the snow, his face distorted, his mouth open, producing an alarming sound. Was his back broken? Should we try to move him? And then we realized that he was not injured after all, but was helpless with laughter.

"At ski area, you keep eye open always!" he said.

We untangled the monks and the girls and steered the Dalai Lama away from the ramp, to gaze safely over the snowy mountains of New Mexico.

He turned to me. "You know, in Tibet we have big mountains." He paused. "I think, if Tibet be free, we have good skiing!"

We rode the lift down and repaired to the lodge for cookies and hot chocolate. The Dalai Lama was exhilarated from his visit to the top of the mountain. He questioned Abruzzo minutely about the sport of skiing and was astonished to hear that even one-legged people could do it.

The Dalai Lama turned to Thondup. "Your children, they ski too?"

Thondup assured him that they did.

"Even Tibetan children ski!" he said, clapping his hands together and laughing delightedly. "Yes, this wonderful sport!"

As we finished, a young waitress with tangled, dirty-blond hair and a beaded headband began clearing our table. She stopped to listen to the conversation and finally sat down, abandoning her work. After a while, when there was a pause, she spoke to the Dalai Lama. "You didn't like your cookie?"

"Not hungry, thank you."

"Can I, um, ask a question?"

"Please."

She spoke with complete seriousness. "What is the meaning of life?"

In my entire week with the Dalai Lama, every conceivable question had been asked-except this one. People had been afraid to ask the one-the really big-question. There was a brief, stunned silence at the table.

The Dalai Lama answered immediately. "The meaning of life is happiness." He raised his finger, leaning forward, focusing on her as if she were the only person in the world. "Hard question is not, 'What is meaning of life?' That is easy question to answer! No, hard question is what make happiness. Money? Big house? Accomplishment? Friends? Or ..." He paused. "Compassion and good heart? This is question all human beings must try to answer: What make true happiness?" He gave this last question a peculiar emphasis and then fell silent, gazing at her with a smile.

"Thank you," she said, "thank you." She got up and finished stacking the dirty dishes and cups, and took them away.

These talks, given by extraordinary Buddhist teachers such as Roshi Joan Halifax, Sharon Salzberg, Bernie Glassman, and many more, are offered to support your practice even if you live far away from Upaya.

Santa Fe Sangha Events

THURSDAYS (most), 9:20 am: Weekly Seminar, Upaya House living room - open to the public. Topic is usually related to the dharma talk of the evening before. To confirm that the seminar is happening that morning, please email temple@upaya.org.

SUNDAY, March 9: Chaplaincy Ordination and Graduation 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m. You are welcome to join us in the temple for this beautiful ceremony. Celebratory lunch to follow: if you plan to attend lunch, please contact registrar@upaya.org.

SATURDAY, March 15: Jukai Ceremony 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m.You are welcome to join us for this ceremony of receiving the precepts. If you plan to stay for the celebratory lunch afterward, please contact aine@upaya.org.

SUNDAY, March 23: Dharma Discussion Group, Upaya House, 6:30 pm Please join Upaya's Local Sangha as we begin a study of the Five Buddha Families. The group meets informally from 6:30-7 pm at Upaya House with tea and cookies, with the formal program running from 7- 8:30 pm. We encourage participants to start by joining the residents for the 5:30 zazen practice. All are welcome as we discuss, explore and further our practice.

THURSDAY, March 27: Fusatsu Full Moon Ceremony, 5:30 p.m.A traditional Buddhist ceremony of atonement, purification, and renewing of the precepts. Upaya holds Fusatsu every month, usually on the day of the full moon. Please join us in the temple for this beautiful ceremony.

SUNDAY, March 30: Meditation Instruction, 3:00 p.m.An offering of temple etiquette and instruction in Zen forms for those who are new to meditation and practice at Upaya. There is no fee, but registration is recommended. Please contact temple@upaya.org or 505-986-8518 x21.

You are an important part of Upaya's community! Thank you for your participation, and for sharing this with anyone else who may be interested.

Stones Needed for Labyrinth at Upaya

We are creating a stone labyrinth at Upaya for the use of residents, guests, and local sangha. We are currently collecting stones from the local area and we could use your help! We are looking for stones about the size of an orange or grapefruit, 4 inches across. If you have any to contribute, or have some good leads on sources, please let us know. Contact aine@upaya.org.

Appearing across cultures over the course of at least 5,000 years, the unicursal labyrinth is an archetypal symbol. Its spiraling design can take varied shapes, sizes, and patterns, but it differs from a puzzle maze in that there is always only one path to the center with no forks, dead ends, or intersections en route to the center. In the last twenty years, the labyrinth has undergone a large-scale re-emergence from obscurity, coming into popular use for walking and tracing as an experiential practice. There is no prescribed method for this practice, but the path itself serves as a container for personal reflection and a metaphorical mirror for the larger journeys of our lives. As a nonsectarian tool for finding calm and insight, labyrinths are now proliferating in their uses worldwide and are being adopted by an increasing number of public parks and community gardens, hospitals, schools, churches, and retreat centers. More and more research indicates the benefits of following the labyrinth’s path to the center and back for mental health and holistic well-being.

Opportunity to Join the Upaya Family in Our Front Office

Unique opportunity for a practitioner to join the Upaya family as a part-time administrative assistant in our front office. This position requires excellent people skills to provide a warm reception to visitors and guests as well as an ability to answer general inquiries from the public about practice at Upaya. A successful candidate will also have strong computer skills and solid phone etiquette.

Benefit package to include paid holidays, sick and vacation days. Please submit cover letter and resume to resumes@upaya.org on or before March 7. Due to our small staff, we are not easily able to accommodate personal visits or telephone conversations, but would appreciate initial inquiries by e-mail.

CEUs and CNEs for 2014: Attention Therapists, Counselors, Social Workers, and Nurses

Upaya invites nurses, counselors, therapists, and social workers to attend our special retreats and trainings where CNEs and CEUs may be earned.

Calgary, AB, Canada: Calgary Contemplative End of Life Care Practice Group. For professionals and volunteers working with people who are dying. Second Monday each month at Hospice Calgary's Sage Center, 6:30 – 8:30 pm. Sit starts at 7 pm. For further information, contact laurie.lemieux@hospicecalgary.com

NEW: Westbury, Wiltshire, U.K. This new group will hold its first meeting on Sunday, October 27th from 3-5 pm at The East Wing, 35 Church Street, Westbury, Wiltshire. For more info, e-mail Jan Mojsa, janmojsa@googlemail.com.